Friday, December 12, 2014

Written by Jon Williams

In case you
missed it somehow, the Grammy Award nominations were announced last week in an
all-day event that culminated in a concert special that came with the Album of
the Year nominees. The artists and albums up for that coveted award are Beck’s Morning
Phase, Beyonce’s self-titled
surprise, Pharrell’s GIRL,
Ed Sheeran’s X,
and Sam Smith’s In
the Lonely Hour. You can find these CDs, along with all the others up
for awards in all categories, in our collection
of 2015 Grammy nominees.

When you
hear about the Grammys, your mind automatically turns to music—which is only
natural, as the awards honor the best and brightest in the music industry, and
at the ceremony the awards themselves take a backseat to some of the most
notable performances of the year. With that in mind, it’s easy to lose sight of
the fact that not all Grammy Awards are given out for music. One such award is
that for comedy album, which has a stellar lineup this year. Here are the
nominees for this year:

Louis C.K. –
Oh
My God: Even if you don’t know Louis C.K. by sight, chances are excellent
that you know his work. In addition to his standup, he has a long and
successful comedy writing career, including for Letterman and Saturday Night Live. He has been
nominated for several Emmy Awards, winning in 1999 for The
Chris Rock Show, and again just last year for his own show, the
acclaimed FX series Louie.

Jim Gaffigan
– Obsessed:
If there’s one overarching theme in Jim Gaffigan’s comedy, it’s that he likes
to talk about food. A lot. He has authored two books of humor: Dad
Is Fat and Food:
A Love Story; the titles should give you some idea. As such, his humor
is generally pretty clean and family-appropriate. Although he doesn’t maintain
a steady presence in Hollywood, it’s certainly not out of the ordinary to see
him on film or TV, with roles in Super
Troopers and That
‘70s Show, to name just a couple.

Patton
Oswalt – Tragedy
Plus Comedy Equals Time: Patton Oswalt, on the other hand, is all over
the place. Performing as a comedian for over twenty years, he has also gotten
regular Hollywood work. He does a fair amount of voice work, most notably
starring as Remy the Rat in Disney/Pixar’s Ratatouille.
Most recently he’s had a recurring role on Marvel’s
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He’s also frequently found on Twitter, where he’s
been known to experiment with the form as a method of delivering comedy.

Sarah
Silverman – We
Are Miracles: Like Louis C.K., one of Sarah Silverman’s first jobs was
writing for SNL, although she had
little success and was fired after one season. Obviously, that hasn’t deterred
her, as she has gone on to become one of the biggest names in comedy. She, like
Patton Oswalt, has done some voiceover work, such as in Wreck-It
Ralph, and plenty of other acting work besides. She has appeared on Louie, and most recently was in the Seth
MacFarlane comedy A
Million Ways to Die in the West.

Weird Al
Yankovic – Mandatory
Fun: Okay, so this one actually is
musical in nature, as well as being hilarious. Al took the Internet by storm
earlier this year with the release of this, his fourteenth album, releasing a
video per day for a week, including parodies of Pharrell’s “Happy” and Robin
Thicke’s “Blurred Lines.” We wrote
about him and his career at the time, but one thing we failed to mention
(specifically) is that he won a previous Grammy for Best Comedy Album in 2003
for Poodle Hat.

All of the
nominees have plenty of hilarious material available; SmartBrowse each of their
names on our website for their films, audiobooks, and standup specials on DVD
and CD. Who do you think is the funniest of the bunch?

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